Brickbat: That's Mighty Neighborly

Healdsburg, California, City Council member Leah Gold has persuaded fellow council members to consider a tax on "rarely used" homes. Gold proposes a 1 percent tax on the assessed value of any home that is not someone's primary residence or leased to a full-time tenant. The money, she says, would be used to fund affordable housing.

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A house sold on my block six months ago for $1.85 million. Sounds like she is rich. I think she wants to keep the richer people out. You’re only in the 1% until enough rich people move in to push you down to the 2%.

I wonder what her idea of “affordable” housing is – what would be her reaction to somebody proposing building a trailer park in her neighborhood? You know, the lack of “affordable” housing is only an issue for the sorts of people who can only afford affordable housing, people like your maid and your landscapers and the waitresses and clerks and valet attendants at the places you dine and shop.

I like how she thinks “kicking in” $10,000 additional tax is fair. What is it with language these people use? It’s always “kicking in” or “chipping in” (the favorite of every democrat begging email), like its voluntary and for a couple bucks.

The California Supreme Court has been gradually chipping away at it. Used to be some of your property tax was fro state fire fighters. Then some legislative genius hived that of finto a separate “fire protection area fee”, which you or I might call a tax increase because the property tax did not go down correspondingly. But no, it’s just a fee, not a tax, adn thus did not need the 2/3 vote.

One solution would be to take constitutionality out of the hands of judges and put it to juries of randomly chosen people. Not pre-emptory challenges or any of that rot, and no appeals of the jury’s decision — after all, if the people can’t understand a law, then it’s too vague or convoluted or inconsistent to be understood by other people too.

Someday the residents of that state will admit that they pay nearly 50%+ of their wealth in taxes and the rest of the USA is passing them by in wealth because all theirs goes to corrupt politicians they elected.

What is “rarely used”? 20%? 10%? 49% of the year? What makes it a “primary residence”? Can you simply designate it as your primary somehow? Supposedly one’s taxes are to pay for services, but governments come to think of it differently. If you aren’t there, you aren’t wearing out the roads or using the library or much of anything except maybe the fire department if it catches fire. Why should you be paying for services?

An additional 1% of assessed value is huge, but my state of Michigan has done something similar for decades — charging a lower ‘homestead’ tax rate for primary owner-occupied residences than for other properties. And in one sense, it’s worse than the Healdsburg proposal, since rental properties are taxed at the higher rate, so renters get hosed. But, of course, renters don’t pay the taxes directly. Most of them think their ‘rich landlords’ are the ones stuck paying the higher tax, so they don’t object. Sigh.